SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:15 P.M. ET:  

SAFER DEAD – Morley Safer, one of the CBS mainstays of "Sixty Minutes," is dead at 84.  Safer will be remembered as a skillful, influential broadcast journalist of uncommon ability with the English language.  Born in Canada, he maintained dual Canadian-American citizenship.  He will also be remembered as one of the broadcast journalists whose reports turned Americans against the Vietnam War.  A full account of the journalism of that war has yet to be done, which has left an open wound in American society, especially among veterans.

GREAT MOMENTS IN EDUCATION – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   An award-winning Brooklyn English teacher’s decision to provide each of his students with a copy of the Mary Shelley classic “Frankenstein” has thrust him into a real-life horror story.  Todd Friedman, a 29-year public-school veteran who teaches at Midwood High School, was put on administrative duty — and faces possible termination — after the city Department of Education slapped him with disciplinary charges.  His crime: He personally ordered 102 paperback copies of the novel from a publisher last September for his Advanced Placement students.  If only he had just been incompetent, all would have been okay.  Why did he have to commit the crime of dedication to his students?  And why order something by Mary Shelley.  Had he ordered something by Malcolm X he would have gotten a commendation.

CLINTON LEADS IN N.J. – FROM THE HILL:   Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton leads rival Bernie Sanders by 14 points in New Jersey, a poll released Thursday found.  And both Democrats have an edge in the Garden State over presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.  Clinton takes 54 percent support among likely voters in New Jersey's Democratic primary, with Sanders at 40 percent.  In a head-to-head matchup, Clinton leads Trump, 45 percent to 38 percent. Sanders holds a slightly larger lead over Trump, 49 percent to 37 percent.  In the Clinton-Trump match-up, Trump leads among men, 46 percent to 36 percent, but Clinton leads among women, 53 percent to 32 percent.  The New Jersey primary is in less than three weeks.  New Jersey votes the same day California does, on the last major primary day.  After September 7th only the District of Columbia votes.  New Jersey will, if the trend continues, be important to Hillary finally driving a stake into Bernie's campaign.  As for the Hillary-Trump matchup,  Hillary has cause to worry.  A seven-point lead in a heavily Democratic state is nothing to write home about. 

May 19, 2016